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Thursday, January 28, 2016

“Shaping the Utility of the Future,” our fifth Annual Renewable Energy Policy Summit, was another huge success for the organization. Held January 21, 2016, it featured thought and action leaders from across the country and leaders from Wisconsin’s utilities and renewable energy industry

The event covered the gamut of opportunities and challenges for increasing renewable energy in Wisconsin. From both the number of attendees, and their feedback so far, we had the best Summit yet!

- 295 registered

- 265 attended

- 56 business and organizational sponsors

- 17 exhibitors

Following some opening remarks from RENEW’s Board President, Carl Siegrist, U.S. Congressman

Mark Pocan gave our audience a warm welcome to Madison, and spoke about the job creation potential of renewable energy and his leadership in Washington, D.C.RENEW’s Tyler Huebner gave a review of 2015’s renewable energy policy impacts and a brief look forward to 2016’s top priorities. Then, we handed the stage over to our opening keynote speaker.

Mary Powell, CEO of Green Mountain Power: “The Energy Company of the Future”

Mary started her speech with her own personal story. She grew up thinking she would become an artist, with no thought that she would ever become an executive. She then transitioned into the evolution that she brought to Green Mountain Power, first starting with a cultural change. She moved the executives out of an office building and into a converted maintenance building next to the line workers.

That lead to the transition in the electricity side of the business. Mary’s business background outside of the utility industry taught her that the customer is king, and Green Mountain Power’s customer surveys showed customers wanted low cost energy, and more renewables. Bucking the traditional thinking that low cost and renewables don’t go together, she challenged her team to figure out how to deliver what their customers want.

The GMP result is “stacking the benefits” as Mary calls it – finding ways to aggregate all the benefits of distributed generation in a way that can lower costs for everyone. You can learn more about how Green Mountain Power is incorporating renewable and distributed energy, click here.

Moderated by Eric Callisto of Michael Best & Friedrich law firm, the panelists discussed their community solar initiatives and additional renewable projects outlook. They also discussed the key policy issues at hand: the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan, distributed generation, the future of the state’s renewable portfolio standard (or RPS).

Awards & Recognition Ceremony

Over lunch, RENEW’s Michael Vickerman lead the recognition of over 40 of 2015’s best renewable energy projects. Three categories were recognized:

- Community solar, featuring five electricity providers who installed community solar programs in 2015

- “10 to Remember,” highlighting unique partnerships and stories of ten solar installations, from large businesses to community solar to non-profit donation-led models.

James Tong, Spruce Finance, “The Democratization of Energy and the Networked Grid”

James Tong came into the renewable energy space trying to figure out how to increase solar installations. He came to the conclusion that working with utilities, and sharing both the utilities natural advantages and the solar industries advantages together, will lead to the most solar at the lowest cost.

After realizing that many utilities will have a hard time making the evolution into solar, for both business and regulatory reasons, he has set out to establish a more democratized electricity grid that would enable market-based transactions for distributed resources. That grid would behave much like the Apple “App Store,” with the utility owning and maintaining the grid as a platform, where valuable third-party providers could provide services. View James’ PowerPoint here.

Our day’s final panel featured experts from three critical renewable energy technologies:

- Chris Kunkle, Wind on the Wires

- Steve Dvorak, DVO Digesters (biogas)

- Adam Gusse, H&H Solar

- Amy Heart, Sunrun & The Alliance for Solar Choice

These panelists discussed the market opportunity for their technology, the market barriers, and the policies in Wisconsin that would enable these technologies to grow. The key policy for wind appears to be the Clean Power Plan, which Chris Kunkle said could lead to 2,000 MW or more of wind generation (Wisconsin currently has about 648 MW). Solar has benefited from Focus on Energy and strong net metering policies, but these policies and programs need to be continued. Also, Adam Gusse highlighted working together with utilities on interconnection as an area where time and cost can be saved. Steve Dvorak of DVO highlighted the various countries and states his company is working in, and the need to re-focus on biogas development in Wisconsin as a win-win-win for renewable energy, our dairy farmers, and our lakes and air.

We hope you will join us next year for another great Renewable Energy Policy Summit!

2015’s Best Renewable Energy Projects to Receive Recognition This Week

The biggest and best renewable energy installations in 2015 are set to be recognized at Renew Wisconsin's annual Renewable Energy Summit this Thursday, January 21st in Madison. The recognition ceremony will take place at 12:45pm, during lunch. The Summit will be held at the Monona Terrace in Madison; registration starts at 8am and the program runs from 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM.

It was a breakout year for solar energy. Over three times as many solar panels were installed in 2015 as the prior year, and the most ever in the state: 7.5 megawatts worth, enough to supply over 900 Wisconsin homes’ annual electricity usage.

The recognition will be bestowed across three categories:

Community Solar, featuring five utility providers who instituted projects where customers can share in the solar production from one centrally located, larger solar array.

Largest Installations, denoting the 31 projects with the largest power capacity that were installed in the year. (Note that some of these are also included in the above two categories.) This category features 30 solar projects alongside Statz B Dairy, where a
“biogas digester” was installed which converts cow manure into usable
biogas for electricity.

Wisconsin Renewable
Energy Honor Roll

Class of 2015
Projects

Thirty-one largest renewable generators installed this
year

Customer

Location

Resource

Utility

Project Size (in kWDC)

Contractor (location)

Forest County
Potawatomi

Crandon, Milwaukee (15 locations)

Solar

WPS, We Energies

922

SunVest Solar

(Pewaukee)

Eau Claire Energy
Cooperative

Fall Creek

Solar

ECEC

863

Able Energy (River Falls)

Central Storage
Warehouse

Madison

Solar

Madison Gas & Electric

741

SunPeak

(Madison)

Statz Brothers

Sun Prairie

Biogas (dairy)

Alliant-WPL

600

DVO (Chilton)

Letterhead Press

New Berlin

Solar

We Energies

337

SunPeak

Rockwell
Automation

Mequon

Solar

We Energies

263

H&H Solar

(Madison)

River Falls
Utilities

River Falls

Solar

RFU (muni)

250

H&H Solar

New Richmond
Utilities

New Richmond

Solar

NRU (muni)

250

H&H Solar

Sisters of St.
Agnes

Fond du Lac

Solar

Alliant-WPL

248

Eland Electric

(Green Bay)

Darlington School
District

Darlington

Solar

Alliant-WPL

156

SunVest Solar

O&H Danish
Bakery

Mt. Pleasant

Solar

We Energies

152

SunVest Solar

Crystal Ball
Farms

Osceola

Solar

Xcel -NSPW

151

Next Energy Solution (Spooner)

Jewelers Mutual
Insurance Company

Neenah

Solar

We Energies

128.5

Energize, LLC (Winneconne)

Stieglitz Dairy

Greenwood

Solar

Clark Electric Cooperative

105.3

Next Energy Solution

Central Waters
Brewery

Amherst

Solar

Alliant-WPL

100.8

North Wind RE (Stevens Point)

Blenker Building
Systems

Amherst

Solar

Alliant-WPL

100.8

North Wind RE

Isthmus

Engineering

Madison

Solar

MG&E

99.5

H&H Solar

Precision Plus

Elkhorn

Solar

Elkhorn (muni)

99

Kettle View RE (Silver Creek)

Animart

Beaver Dam

Solar

Alliant-WPL

99

Kettle View RE

Organic Valley

Cashton

Solar

Cashton (muni)

95

Full Spectrum Solar (Madison)

Corrim Company

Oshkosh

Solar

WI Public Service

92

SunPeak

Components
Company

Brookfield

Solar

We Energies

78

Convergence Energy (Lake Geneva)

Parmenter
CircleApts.

Middleton

Solar

MG&E

72

Full Spectrum Solar

Oregon Middle
School

Oregon

Solar

Alliant

62

Full Spectrum Solar

Outpost Nat’l
Foods

Mequon

Solar

We Energies

56.3

SunVest Solar

Evergreen Credit
Union

Neenah

Solar

We Energies

56

Eland Electric

Clark Electric
Cooperative

Greenwood

Solar

Clark Electric

53.3

10K Solar/ Viking Electric (MN)

Excel Patterns

Bonduel

Solar

We Energies

50.4

Eland Electric

Infinity Retail
Services

Turtle Lake

Solar

Xcel-NSPW

50

Kettle View RE

Borah Teamwear

Coon Valley

Solar

Xcel-NSPW

50

Ethos Green Power (Viroqua)

Reynolds Storage
and Transfer

Madison

Solar

MG&E

48

SunPeak

"Solar energy is growing at exponential rates across the country and we are pleased that Wisconsin is sharing in this American success story with the many great projects installed in 2015," said Tyler Huebner, Renew Wisconsin's Executive Director. "However, our Honor Roll shows another stark fact: as a state, we need to prioritize the growth of wind, bioenergy, and hydro power as well as solar in 2016 and beyond. These homegrown energy sources will make Wisconsin better for future generations."